


Eternity in a Mirror

by shipcat



Series: Naruto Event Work [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Body Horror, Implied/Referenced Drowning, M/M, Sasori is Savage, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 22:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17292707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipcat/pseuds/shipcat
Summary: They rest on a bed of sand under the bulging thorns of a Joshua tree. It is barely enough to shade one man, let alone a pair, and so Sasori finds himself on his side, crammed close to the supine Third Kazekage. Brown eyes lazily examine the sallow of the other’s face, and he calculates body weight times dosage times rate of absorption under his breath. He twines their legs together, softly estimating time of death like sweet nothings. Perhaps they were, for him.Two slender hands take in a third, and the sun burns everything it touches.* * *The tale of a self-proclaimed artist and the Third Kazekage, told in three parts.





	Eternity in a Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Kahlil Gibran.
> 
> _beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror._  
>  but you are eternity,  
> and you are the mirror.
> 
> For the amazing [Sockori](sockori.tumblr.com) <3

_ Human lives are so brief, and their love so tragic.  _

_ I want our story to be a happy one. _

_  
_ *

  
  
They rest on a bed of sand under the bulging thorns of a Joshua tree. It is barely enough to shade one man, let alone a pair, and so Sasori finds himself on his side, crammed close to the supine Third Kazekage. Brown eyes lazily examine the sallow of the other’s face, and he calculates body weight times dosage times rate of absorption under his breath. He twines their legs together, softly estimating time of death like sweet nothings. Perhaps they were, for him.

Two slender hands take in a third, and the sun burns everything it touches.

Somewhere in between the cool shadow of the tree, and the cooler skin of the Third, Sasori wonders if his chest should ache as it does, if his eyes should prickle as they do. How cruel this world was, that he was forced to go this far to feel anything at all.   
  
Insects scritter through the roots of their shelter, burying into the loose soil, clumped and darkened with red. Sasori relinquishes his dark countdown, and instead seeks a distraction—mentally reciting the ingredients of a poison his mother once coined. 

_ “A recipe for disaster,” _ Granny Chiyo used to croon, with a voice of wrinkled papyrus. She was ancient. So much so that many Sunans doubted that she had ever been young in the first place. She had always been there, according to local legend—from the time the village had been but a tradepost at an oasis, to the forced unification of all the desert tribes and the formation of the Hidden Sand. Her formidable personality had been a constant up until the day she left for her self-imposed exile. She was the one eternal thing he would hesitate to call, “art.”   
  
A failed guardian, she called herself. (He would agree.)   
  
Insane, she called him. (That cantankerous old bat.)   
  
And yet, on the precipice of his greatest work, doubt crawls in. Sasori stares at the man that could have loved him, in another lifetime, with different choices made. The one that would be his favorite.   
  
“Do you think me mad, Lord Kazekage?” Sasori hears himself ask. He immediately backtracks. “No, no. This is the right decision. The logical one. Perhaps cruel, and painful,” he admits, squeezing the Third’s hand and curling into him further, “but logical. Your new form will last far longer than anyone of flesh. We will last longer. It is only logical.”    
  
“Only...logical,” the Kazekage echoes, blinking blearily at the rambling man.   
  
“Yes. Logical,” Sasori says, as if repetition makes it any more true. “You should know that it’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality."   
  
“Mhm...”    
  
Silence. The desert holds its breath.    
  
Then the Third dredges up the last of his energy, rubbing Sasori’s knuckles with the edge of his thumb.    
  
On any other occasion, the gesture would be comforting. This time, it only makes the victory that much more hollow.

 

*

*

 

_ I was a fool, but a fool for you. And you— _

_ —you were my king. A king for me. _

 

_ * _

_ * _

 

He finds the Third Kazekage‘s head in a pool of water lilies, a giant orange koi swimming through the kelp of his undone hair. Scales shimmer and refract rainbows onto the smoothly carved planes of the Lord Third’s face; a wide-eyed fish pokes its head out of the ruined fur collar, floating contentedly in its new home. Sasori snatches up the Lord Third before it can nibble on his ear. He takes one heavy step away—then stops, backtracks, and swipes up a shredded black coat, flopping koi and all.    
  
Throwing it over his back, he splashes his way to the square edge of the pool, lily pads shivering in his wake. There, the drenched cloth is unceremoniously dropped onto the dirt floor of the ruined courtyard. The fish gasps, tangled in its many folds. 

Sasori waits for it to die, before kicking it back into the water.

Sunset peeks over the roof of the desert fortress, silently regarding the criminal and his victims below. Iron-slashed and burnt pillars surround the wrecked courtyard, standing tall over rock gardens and the koi pond at its center. On the dusted ground, senbon needles poke out of woefully unguarded necks, wrists, ankles. Some mouths still gape with foam, eyes wide and glossy. In death throes.

Make-shift art supplies for a struggling creative soul.

Cradled in the shadow of a vaulted arch are the many pieces of the Third, broken in impossible places in impossible ways. Iron sand pours out of splintered ribs, ball joints hover around smashed-in sockets, uncertain. 

Sasori places his prize over a hollowed neck as if it were a crown on a pedestal. Then, in a sweep of blue threads, Sasori connects his core to the Third, clicking the many parts into place. 

It is not perfect, the way their souls slide into each other - but it will do for now. Sasori will do extensive repairs later. At the moment, there are more pressing things to attend to. 

He leaves the Kazekage behind to deal with the bodies. The most viable specimen are sealed away to be converted later; all others dutifully stand at the puppeteer’s beckon, dragging their feet to the koi.

One by one, they fall in.

Sasori turns to the cracked, water-soaked face of the Third. He brushes back dark locks to glare furiously at his puppet. “What were you thinking?” he demands, combing through the wet mane of the Third Kazekage. 

Water lilies fall into his lap, crumpled by uncareful fingers. They bring to mind days gone by, when the desert breeze had once been kind. The two had strolled among ruins long gone, idly conversing. The Third pointed out hieroglyphs and chattered about his theories about why this and that civilization rose, then fell. 

“Because they were too proud,” Sasori argued. 

“Many historians say so, yes. But the people believed otherwise.” The Kazekage hummed, tipped his head in agreement, then continued walking, hands clasped behind his back. Square clay buildings loomed over them, each one story, and each dripping with dark vines. Slivers of adobe poked out from underneath the foliage, which the man brushed aside, inspecting old Sunan words slashed into the wall in desperation. 

“They claim the land is cursed,” The Third explained. “But they are also incorrect.” Then he pulled a flower out of the vine, and gave it to Sasori for his inspection. “It is an invasive species brought to Suna by foreign traders. Poisonous. Not to touch, but to ingest. It grew into the water supply.”

_ I thought you might like it _ , lingered in the way the Lord reluctantly pulled away from the puppeteer, slanted eyes watching Sasori for his reaction.

Symmetrical on every front, its petals tapered to a rounded point, even in number and not a thorn to be seen. His brow narrowed as he looked down upon the specimen, heart rising up into his throat and settling there, a useless lump. 

“You killed it,” he remembers saying. “It was beautiful, and you killed it.”

He says these words to himself, the back of his hand running down the square panes of the face of a Lord who once walked by his side, and now hovers behind him. Carefully sculpted lips show signs of no pleasure or displeasure - not when Sasori runs his fingers over them. Not when fire fills his chest, and Sasori grabs the wooden jaw so hard it creaks in protest.

“Going for a swim?” he sneers. “You fool. You’ll ruin your finish.”

Golden eyes glitter as if enjoying a private joke. Sasori nearly throws his hands up into the air at the irritation of it all.

Interrogation aside, there is no need to rehash what has already happened—they are already running late, already held up in an ambush gone wrong, already had their share of near-death experiences. 

Indeed. There is no need to mention how the puppet had yanked his strings, pulling him out of the way of a scimitar aimed for his neck. Nor a reason why he should address the way his chest nearly burst at the sight of his Lord strewn across the yard. 

“Getting in the way, making me  _ worry _ —” he stops to glare at the other again. Teal nails catch on the edge of a smirk, and the puppeteer falters. Behind him, fish dart and jump away from the bubbling surface, waves sloshing around the pool’s edge. 

“...you fool.”  

The Third doesn’t answer; Sasori huffs.    
  
“Don’t do that again.”

 

*

*

 

_ Alive or dead, your eyes are the same as always. _

_ Fixated on me. _

 

*

*

 

They are reunited as they met—in the middle of war.

Sasori flicks his fingers in intricate shapes, Edo Tensei puppets following suit. Their limbs move organically, rushing the enemy with a suicidal determination. At his side, Deidara smirks, hands forming their familiar seals. The blond shouts,  _ “katsu!” _ and their enemies explode into shrapnel, bright red against the blue of the night. 

“You really have to say that each time?” Sasori looks off as his puppets disappear in a rush of flames. The end is nigh, and he is honestly not impressed.

Deidara lets a smirk fly. “Art is all about presentation, yeah?” 

“Wrong.”

“No! No, listen, master! Saying, ‘Katsu,’ is like telling your audience, ‘look at me!’ and—”

“You’re a shinobi, not a sound technician—”

“—and the moment they do, their eyes go wide, wide with the realization that this is their last moment! Their memories flash before them, more vibrant than ever! More beautiful! And then—in that moment!—they think,  _ ‘ah…this, is art! _ ”

It is a bit too late and Sasori is a bit too dead to argue that true art is eternal. Sasori clicks his tongue in disgust and shifts away, redirecting his attention to the sound of a snapping twig. (It’s less offensive.)

Red hair gusts past his sclera-dark eyes. On the opposite side of the battlefield, a resurrected Third Kazekage captures his gaze, knowing. He stalks through the ash and brush, blue robes peeking in and out of shadows. His gold-black stare burns through Sasori as he approaches, spine just as straight as the day Sasori killed him. 

Another twig snaps. Sasori’s stomach sinks into the earth. 

He doesn’t have time to warn his partner.

A wave of black sand slams into the two, pinning Sasori against a giant tree. Deidara screams in the distance—something about not being into BDSM—but he is too busy gasping to pay attention. 

_ Breathe _ , he orders himself. He tries to call his puppets, but his fingers do not obey. Panic jolts into his bones, sending him squirming against restraints that only tighten.

His gasps turn into wheezes as two large hands settle around his face. Wild brown eyes snap up. Sasori  _ hisses.  _

“Did you miss me, scorpion?” The Third murmurs, thumbs pressing into too-pale cheeks.

“No,” Sasori retorts. “You’re going to tear me limb from limb.”

A pale moon eyes them from above, enveloping the two in her silverlight.  _ She has driven my Lord mad _ , Sasori thinks. It would make sense, given how the former Kazekage chuckles in response; how he leans in to cage Sasori with his body, shielding him from the cries of war at his back. 

The man barely rasps out a “never” before crushing their lips together.

Fear shoots into Sasori like an arrow through the lungs—then trepidation, then confusion. Red hair slides between bronze fingers, iron disappearing as Sasori meets his mouth with bites of his own. All at once Sasori realizes that the man is not here for revenge, but the promise of something else more appealing. Fists wrinkle the Third’s robes, and Sasori knows these bodies are eternal.  _ They _ are eternal.

Nails curl against bark. They stumble over tree roots. One hand grabs another, and starlight kisses their cheeks.

Their story closes like he’s always dreamed it would:

Happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all liked it! Leave a kudos/comment if you can?
> 
> My [Tumblr](thatshipcat.tumblr.com).
> 
> My [PillowFort](pillowfort.io/thatshipcat).


End file.
